Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
5. Mutation
The types of mutation implemented in Avida include:
(1) Copy mutation: the mutation taking place when copying.
(2) Point mutation: the mutation taking place at random.
(3) Division mutation: the mutation taking place when father and son are
dividing.
(4) Division insert, division delete: the mutation of deliberately inserting or
deleting a certain character when the cell is dividing.
Generally speaking, all the mutation rates must be under a determinate value
to avoid killing the colony. But if the mutation rate is too low, the evolution will
become very slow. Some parameter variables in Avida system can be revised,
which makes Avida system approach the Darwin biological evolution process of
natural selection and survival of the fittest.
15.8.3
Ecosystem for biological breed Terrarium
In order to show some important features in the .NET frame and stimulate study
interests of the programmers, Microsoft Corporation introduces the
demonstration program of an ecosystem named Terrarium. Terrarium is in fact a
teaching game to exhibit the application and development technologies of .NET
frame to software developers. And in the meanwhile it is also a modeling tool for
studying evolutionary biology and artificial intelligence. In the Terrarium game,
the developers can create plant-eating animal, carnivore or plant, and put them
into the ecosystem which is based on the model of “survival of the fittest” and
peer-to-peer network structure. This game provides not only a competitive
environment for testing developer abilities in software development and strategy
design, but also an nearly real model of evolutionary biology and artificial
intelligence for testing the adaptive capacities of the living beings with different
behavior and attributes in the struggle of surviving.
The URL address of Microsoft ecosystem named Terrarium, which is used for
raising living beings, is http://www.terrariumgame.net/terrarium/. A Microsoft
server is responsible for running the whole ecosphere, and uses the manageable
container manner to let all living beings live in it. There is an environment
program on the server side, which has some basic parameters of biological world
including: time, energy, resource, space, etc. There is also a seed program on the
